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A new food safety study by Consumer Reports found banned antibiotics on samples of imported shrimp collected from the shelves of major retail chains, such as Kroger, Wal-Mart, and Costco. The illegal trade schemes that allow tainted shrimp to evade food safety laws and reach our dinner plates are the same fraudulent trade practices that jeopardize our local shrimp industry, which sources from natural, sustainable stocks that do not need antibiotics. That is why Louisiana’s shrimp consumers and producers need Congress to pass the “Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act” (HR 1907).

The proposed legislation would substantially strengthen the federal government’s ability to prevent and deter fraudulent trade. Today, federal enforcement agents simply lack the tools needed to keep up with the millions of pounds of shrimp that are imported into this country through the intentional use of illegal trade schemes.

Addressing fraudulent trade is like a game of whack-a-mole. When federal enforcement officials catch a company evading antidumping duties and food safety import alerts, the company disappears without penalty. Then, an exporter or importer at the same address with the same management appears under a new name to provide the same volume of illegally traded shrimp to the U.S. market.

The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act has new enforcement provisions that would be a game changer for the federal agencies that work to prevent and eliminate fraudulent trade.

Especially important in addressing illegal trade schemes is the “Preventing Recurring Trade Evasion and Circumvention Act” (PROTECT) section of the bill championed by U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany.

PROTECT would increase information sharing among federal agencies. It would establish an investigation team to look into fraudulent trade, increase communication between federal agencies, authorize enforcement officials to penalize companies that do not cooperate in investigations of illegal trade, provide accountability to Congress, and much more.

Illegally traded products endanger consumers and cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars every year through evaded duties. Yet, the most tangible effect of the fraudulent trade are the domestic business closures, like those of shrimp fishermen here in Louisiana, that occur as a result of the flood of cheap, low-quality imports.

The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act is needed to provide the shrimp industry in Louisiana with a level playing field on which to compete against imports and to prevent tainted shrimp from entering the U.S. market.

— Wendell Verret is the director of the Port of Delcambre that is home to a commercial fishing fleet and a shrimp industry that processes millions of pounds of locally caught shrimp each year.